


A Place of Safety

by annaslastdalliance



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Gen, I have Sebastian LaCroix problems, Introspection and Angst, POV Second Person, People just think a lot, Spoilers, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 06:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaslastdalliance/pseuds/annaslastdalliance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So where, then, will you go? Where is this fabled place of safety?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place of Safety

**Author's Note:**

> This is the (now ancient) result of my obsession with Sebastian LaCroix, a desire to improve my narrative, and a desperate need to find justifications for the things I made my player-character do (or rather: the allegiances I made her swear). Title inspired by Hilary Mantel's "A Place of Great Safety," because there's no safety to be had and you do claw after it rather. Tagged "Vampire: The Masquerade" because tagging "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines" isn't an option. I haven't played the RPG or the earlier game, (although I would like to!). Apologies.

At first, you are angry.

How could you not be? You have been robbed, misplaced, _dépaysé_ , LaCroix would say; uprooted and then accused, tried, and then found guilty. If not for Nines, you would have been executed that very instant, eyes still unblinking, reeling from the death of your second Father.

Instead, with Nines’ words, Sebastian LaCroix becomes another. A third Father: that, a luxury you never expected. You wonder if this one will not meet the same sticky end as the others, although, you find, he is nothing like them. He is not kind, but he is curt, and clean, and he does not touch you, and your eyes are finally allowed to open, unhindered. The chaos is allowed to settle, and a man named Jack shows you the ropes nobody else can be bothered to. Not even Nines Rodriguez, the man who has just saved your life. You learn quickly, quietly, and do as you’re told.

Mercurio, when you meet him, becomes a tiny exception to the jagged hatred you are subconsciously cultivating. He sprawls on his couch, bleeding, and the gaze he turns on you is pain ridden and blessedly apolitical. Beckett is another who offers this comforting, selective blindness; in time, you begin to suspect he operates in circles so beyond your understanding that his gaze is in fact merely measurement on a different scale. With Mercurio, however, there is none of this. You speak together of Santa Monica as though discussing a tourist destination. It is an odd comfort, but a comfort nonetheless, and one you fear to indulge in too much. As your duties move further away from Santa Monica, you see Mecurio more and more sporadically. The temptation to go back lessens, and it becomes easier to stay away.

Of your savior, Nines Rodriguez, you see considerably more. He is based in _The Last Round_ , after all, a tavern in Downtown L.A. that is too crowded with Brujahs and loud music for your tastes. Nonetheless, your paths continue to cross, and time after time Nines plays the part of the hero. There is no question in your mind as to why. Nines, for all his unassuming friendliness, is not blind, unlike Mecurio. Your class, your status, the manner of your ‘birth’—they are dull, silver reflections in his eyes when he lays them on you. He is kind, but his kindness is meaningless, and though his protection is well-meant, it is automatic and theoretical. He lived through the Great Depression; to him, you must just seem like another soul going hungry, another working-class citizen wronged by those in power. His obvious sympathy irritates you as much as you are touched by it. What LaCroix has done to you does not feel like wronging. You are being used, but you do not feel exploited. And as of yet, you cannot quite put a finger on why.

You have far fewer doubts about the others you encounter. Strauss, Gary, Damsel—they are more easily categorized, more black and white in your mind. Ming-Xiao, for instance, coils anger in your stomach the moment you meet; for all her talk of spiritual rebirth, she is cold and her eyes cannot see past the political implications of your existence. There is no fire to her ambition, no sincerity, no _commitment_. It does not surprise you to discovery the enmity between her and LaCroix, for she seems the very antithesis of the man you follow. They are both ambitious, yes, but the Prince you serve is anything but dispassionate, and if he has been misled in his quest for power, you are certain that he does not know it. LaCroix’s cruelty, when unleashed, is righteous and ruthless. His sacrifices are just that: sacrifices, unforgivable acts carried out without regret, but always with an overarching purpose in mind. Killing your sire was a cruelty, yes, and your murder would have been doubly so, but Ming-Xiao’s behavior is errant and aimless and disgusts you to your very core. There is no hidden depth to the High Priestess of the Kuei-jin. She is exactly as she seems: foreign, and empty.

Of LaCroix, however, you can no longer say the same. Finding him in his penthouse with Beckett surprises you. In your mind, they have always seemed too fundamentally different to ever be in a room together: LaCroix, with his well-controlled, earthly passions and Beckett, unconcerned to the point of risking _Gehenna_ , superior above even disdain. The Prince’s world is dictated by the rules of a chessboard peopled with pieces: you are a prime example, having moved under his tutelage from pawn, to knight, to queen. But Beckett is no pawn, no knight, and certainly no king. He has no role to play, and his movements are unpredictable. Finding him here is disconcerting, and although you trust him enough not to feel fear, it still sends a shiver through you. You look towards your Prince and your emotions are no longer well-defined. There is still that precarious melding of anger and duty, carefully built up with each promise made and delivered, but now respect rears its head, delicately. In this position, Ming-Xiao would never call on Beckett, and nor would Nines. Ming-Xiao would fear his independence and ability where Nines would dismiss him as undeserving of compassion. But with LaCroix, there is only a goal and a method with which to reach it. And although you feel naïve for admiring this, you cannot help yourself. _The Prince_. Sebastian, Beckett calls him, and it makes you start: such an ordinary, human name, for a man far better suited to his title. You long to follow this thought to its conclusion, but before you can, Beckett mentions the key to the Sarcophagus and you suddenly remember your charge. Obedience outweighs your confusion, your emotional derailment. You leave with your mind still whirring and your questions unasked.

From then on, however, things are different. When you hear that your Prince has called a blood-hunt against you, you are initially too furious to speak, but although the anger that you have nurtured from the very beginning triples, your loyalty remains alongside it, quiet. LaCroix has merely moved his queen in order to protect his king; it is to be expected, not a betrayal. Somehow, everything has been turned around in your mind. You sit in the back of the taxi cab with your hands folded in your lap, barely listening to the diver’s words, silently hoping he will keep driving forever.

A place of safety. You cannot decide. But then, with your existence, can you even know what safety is? Surely you did not learn it when you were alive, in your pitiful subsistence as a ghoul, dazed into apathy by neglect, and certainly not in your death, buffered from master to master to be used first as a tool and then as a political emblem. The places you have felt safe in your afterlife are limited to two: your haven, with Heather’s pale neck arched against your teeth, and perched on Mercurio’s couch, inspecting weaponry, but Heather is gone, murdered by the Sabbat, and Mercurio has not the power to protect you. Your choices are limited, and they transcend the small comforts you had carved out for yourself across L.A. This is not a choice between the few remaining locations offering peace of mind, but a declaration of allegiance, a political decision. It is a question of loyalty, and faith, and standing at the right hand of some greater power; a choice that will define the meaning of your entire existence to this point. No wonder you hesitate.

Then, of course, there is the option of going to no one, of choosing your _self_ as a master. It has crossed your mind before and it does again now. But _where_ , then? To your empty haven, the one given to you by your Prince? Back to the home you had in life, to watch, and wait? These are not options, and you know it. You do not want them: their independence, or their loneliness. 

So where, then, will you go? Where is this fabled place of safety? In Nines’ sorrowful, pitying, socialist eyes? In the hands of Ming-Xiao and her underlings, consumed by their quest for empty spiritual nirvana? Or with the Camarilla itself, perhaps, toeing the line of some arbitrary laws laid down centuries ago and never contested? But then, is choosing LaCroix’s care not equally absurd? After all, you doubt that LaCroix’s side is the safest, in terms of your physical wellbeing. Too many factions have set themselves against him, and his lust for power has caused too many raised eyebrows within the Camarilla itself. You are not even sure that LaCroix’s side is the _right_ one, for any given value of right.

Your Prince is certainly flawed, after all. He is reckless, ruthless, arrogant and blind to his own faults. Finally, most importantly, he is power-hungry to the point of carelessness, and if there is anything you cannot forgive, it is this. But thinking of it, now, other things come back to you. His subtle praise and his possession: _my unstoppable crusader_! The others have praised you, too, but ostentatiously, offering honeyed words designed to make you preen and patronizing to the last. LaCroix alone is truly cognizant of your worth, even as he knows the political danger you present. And yet, the former surmounts the latter. He kept you out of obligation, but when he could not dispose of you, he made use of you, and found value in you—in _you_ , when all others would find it only in your political implications. In _you_. 

In the end, LaCroix’s Sarcophagus is empty. It has always been empty, but it doesn’t really matter.


End file.
